LIHU‘E — If the Hawaii Superferry wants to be the H4 (interisland, ocean-based highway), then representatives of a new airline said yesterday to think of them as an extension of the “the (Honolulu) Bus.” Representatives of FlyHawaii yesterday flew to
LIHU‘E — If the Hawaii Superferry wants to be the H4 (interisland, ocean-based highway), then representatives of a new airline said yesterday to think of them as an extension of the “the (Honolulu) Bus.”
Representatives of FlyHawaii yesterday flew to Kaua‘i on what they hope will soon be their competitors to meet with members of Kaua‘i’s media to discuss the fledgling FlyHawaii, hoping to start flights from Lihu‘e to Honolulu in early 2006.
FlyHawaii Vice-President Chris Parsons, a one-time Kaua‘i resident and former television journalist, said the airline would compete with the big boys in Hawai‘i aviation by having more flights, at more times than Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Airlines, with a cost of around $50 one-way.
“It’s time for a new airline, designed specifically for interisland travel,” Parsons said at a press conference at the Kaua‘i War Memorial Convention Hall. “The idea is (for customers) to go to the airport and jump on a plane.”
The airline is admittedly at least eight months away, and many logistics, including regulations and which terminals they would use, have yet to be decided.
While FlyHawaii leaders have been in contact with officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the state and federal Departments of Transportation, many more regulatory hoops and securing total financing still need to be completed, Parsons said.
But Parsons, with Carl Christoffersen, FlyHawaii’s vice president and chief operating officer, painted a picture for the media yesterday of a low-cost airline, run like JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines, that would generate more travel, rather than take away business from the two major carriers and Island Air.
They said that FlyHawaii would provide 68-seat, turboprop planes about once every 45 minutes (up to 25 or 26 flights a day), from early morning to late at night.
“There is clearly a pent-up demand,” Parsons said, for Hawai‘i residents to travel throughout the state. “We don’t need to knock anybody out to do well.”
Parsons said that, due to the high cost of inter-island travel, many Hawai‘i residents have foregone trips to Honolulu, Maui, and elsewhere. If company leaders can provide a low-cost alternative, more people will travel.
“People just aren’t traveling because they can’t afford to,” Parsons continued. “Our goal is to reconnect the islands.”
Many Kaua‘i residents remember failed low-cost airlines in the past. So how is FlyHawaii different than Mahalo Airlines or Mid-Pacific and other short-lived ventures?
“We bring all this stuff to the Hawai‘i market that hasn’t been here before,” Parsons said.
FlyHawaii’s Chief Executive Officer James Delano has spent years, Parsons said, traveling the world, and checking out different air carriers, to see what works and what hasn’t.
While low-cost airlines such as JetBlue have been immensely successful in the United States, other international carriers in the Caribbean and Tahiti have had success using the same type of turboprop planes doing similar-length puddle jumps, Parsons said. Delano said he believes “air carriers are more than just a business in Hawai‘i,” Parsons said. “Neighbors and families have been separated” by the high cost of travel.
Plus, the turboprop planes, the ATR-72, burn less than half the fuel per seat than the jets used by other carriers, Christoffersen said.
And the trip from Honolulu to Maui would take about an extra three minutes.
“We will take advantage of techniques of the low-cost carriers,” Parsons said. “We’re not re-inventing the wheel.”
Those include Web-based flight reservations, a solid business plan looking only to provide inter-island service, and linking of baggage and codes from other airlines, he added.
Tom Finnegan, staff writer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or tfinnegan@pulitzer.net.
